The present invention relates to an anchorage system made up of elements to support installations of all types, and its registration in conformance with the regulatory legislation of the Industrial Property under the terms and conditions established therein.
In the development of large industrial installations, due to their duration and complexity, the construction of the buildings must be carried out simultaneously with the installation design development, due to the fact that, if the construction is delayed until the design is finished, the financial costs would be exorbitant as the contracting of the equipment would have to be made well in advance of the required date and it would be impossible to incorporate the technological advances which could appear during the development of the work as information on the construction of the installation would have to be blocked well in advance.
Due to the above, the construction of the buildings must be performed with necessarily incomplete information of the installation and, therefore, with an incomplete knowledge of the elements needed for anchoring equipment, piping installation, electrical conduits, etc.
Although provisions have been furnished to take into consideration the elements which need to be anchored, there are many cases in which (due to changes in the installation, equipment variations, etc.) no element has been provided for anchoring the equipment and the installations, which becomes especially serious in the case of very heavy equipment or which, for some reason (impacts, seismic accelerations, etc.), transmits heavy loads to the building.
Consequently, during the construction of large industrial installations (and equally in the processes of industrial plant extension or modification), there are many cases in which it is necessary to support heavy loads directly on the completed structure.
At the present, in order to withstand heavy loads on the already completed structure, the anchorage is made by means of bolts which are introduced in drill holes made in the corresponding constructive element, to which they are anchored by means of an adhesive (chemical anchored bolts), or by means of mechanical systems which expand some of the bolt components by pressing laterally against the drill hole walls (expansion bolts).
If both anchoring systems are analyzed, as is done below, it can be seen that neither of them offers total security.
In the chemical anchored bolts, it is impossible to know if the adhesive completely covers the bolt surface and if it makes a good contact with same and with the drill walls. It is also impossible to make any type of inspection. Failures can also be detected in the anchorage due to aging of the adhesive, due to chemical attacks or the existence of foreign bodies in the walls of the drill hole (dust, grease, dampness, etc.).
In the expansion bolts, due to the fact that the anchorage is made pressing laterally against the drill hole walls, long term slippage could appear resulting in loss of all the anchoring capacity throughout this time. This effect is particularly significant in the case of bolts subjected to dynamic loads, where the oscillations produced by the loads give rise to the slippage of the bolts. Furthermore, this type of anchorage is very sensitive to the condition of the drill hole walls and a slippage could be produced if the walls are covered with dust, grease, etc.
From all the above, it can be deduced that the presently existing systems do not afford a complete security and it is necessary to point out that as a consequence of a failure in the anchorage ruptures of the pipe or electrical cables can be produced which, since they are related to the safety of the installation (control systems, fire protection systems, etc.) or due to the type of fluid being transported (acids, fuels, etc.), they can cause total destruction of the plant and loss of human life.